


some nights (we light on fire)

by museicalitea



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alcohol, Established Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-05 17:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12194385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museicalitea/pseuds/museicalitea
Summary: “You just got into the final too,” Leo retorts. “Don’t pretend like no one wants to talk to thehero of Kazakhstan,especially when you’re defending last year’s streak—”“The sponsors have already heard everything from me,” Otabek says—and then he lets go of Leo’s hand, only to wrap that arm round Leo’s waist and pull him in close. “Let’s go back to your room. Wecancelebrate in private, can’t we?”





	some nights (we light on fire)

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this forever ago, but it's one of those things I've never left to the wayside entirely. It started life as a prompt, "things you said after you kissed me", and I'm not quite sure where it went, but really I just wanted some happy established relationship LeoBekas in my life (also this takes place in the 2018-19 season working in a universe where YoI season 1 happened in the 2015-16 season, hence, Vancouver, and hence, podium family aren't the only ones winning competitions).
> 
> Title from [Never Look Away](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3sshWis2jI) (Vienna Teng), the ultimate in victorious LeoBeka songs, and more mood music from [R U Mine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eBMVezonmM) (Arctic Monkeys).

Success tastes rich, and bonfire-hot, the thrill of lightning after a long night chasing storms. But pushing himself the way he did this afternoon for his free skate—edging out that medal by less than two points, in the end—has worn Leo down. Adrenaline keeps him sharp for the gala performance, but no sooner has he swept his way off the ice than his legs turn to jello, and it’s all he can do not to fall asleep on the bench once he sits down to take his skates off.

“I don’t wanna stay too long,” he admits when Nadine hands him his suit bag, and she pulls him into a quick, tight one-armed hug.

“If you can get through all the sponsors in an hour I’ll cover for you after,” she says. “You tired?”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Leo says with a wry grin, and Nadine squeezes him once more.

“Suit on, one hour. And get Altin to do your hair.”

“I can do my own hair!”

“He does it neater, hon.”

“Are you just saying that ‘cause you don’t have to deal with him every day?”

“Look, your beau held the door open for me and asked how I was doing and said some very nice things about my latest tattoos, I think favouritism is perfectly acceptable here.”

As promised, it’s only an hour and six minutes into the banquet when Nadine gives him the nod, and Leo tips back the last of his champagne—just one glass, because more will get to his head and he needs all his wits about him when he's this exhausted—and readies himself to leave.

“Where are you going?”

Leo never noticed Otabek slipping out after him, and he turns and smiles. Leo’s kept his tux standard black for this banquet, but Otabek’s in dove-grey trousers and an emerald jacket Leo remembers from a couple years back, well-cut and sharp against his frame. Leo waits for him to catch up, and takes Otabek’s extended hand as they start to walk again, side by side.

“Back to my room.” Leo nods upwards in the vague direction of the floor he’s on. “My legs are dead and I could probably sleep for a week.”

“You’re leaving early?” Otabek sounds surprised. “I thought you’d be the last to leave, everyone would want to talk to you.”

Leo squeezes Otabek’s hand and shakes his head. “Nadine said it’d be alright, she’d cover for me. It’s not that big a deal—”

“You just qualified for the GPF with two first placings,” Otabek says pointedly. “I’d say It’s a fairly big deal.”

“You just got into the final too,” Leo retorts. “Don’t pretend like no one wants to talk to the _hero of Kazakhstan,_ especially when you’re defending last year’s streak—”

“The sponsors have already heard everything from me,” Otabek says—and then he lets go of Leo’s hand, only to wrap that arm round Leo’s waist and pull him in close. “Let’s go back to your room. We _can_ celebrate in private, can’t we?”

“I don’t think there’s any champagne there—” Leo stumbles over his words as Otabek nuzzles hot and pressing against his neck. “Ah—ah—Otabek!”

“We don’t need champagne to celebrate,” Otabek murmurs, pressing a tiny, chaste kiss to Leo’s jaw. “Although, I wouldn’t say no to a good shiraz, if we can get it from room service. You’re okay with a red?”

Leo laughs, and leans in so he can kiss Otabek properly in return. “A red sounds _excellent_.”

 

* * *

 

Forty minutes later finds the wine bottle two-thirds-empty on the coffee table, two magenta-stained glasses greasy with lip balm beside, and Leo on Otabek’s lap on the bed.

His nose tickles from the alcohol, in a warm way, a nice way. The heating’s up in the room, a soft playlist playing on Leo’s phone, and both their suit jackets have been left to the mercy of the floor. Drycleaning, after all, is what the sponsors pay for. Leo’s undone the top buttons of his shirt and toed his shoes off, and he sits with his aching feet dangling off the bed, pressed against Otabek at the headboard, and getting tipsy on sweet chemical pheromones for the second time that night.

Like everything he does in life, Otabek kisses boldly and well. He has one arm wrapped firmly around Leo’s back, rubbing at his waist with every pull and tender touch, and his free hand clasped in Leo’s. There’s a softness about his eyes tonight, one even Leo doesn’t often get to see, and his lips are shiny, lip balm rubbed away under wine and eager mouths and the lust of a hundred kisses. It might be a hundred. It’s probably less.

But it feels like a thousand—the way each pull and tug catches and slides over Leo’s lips, the way Otabek’s mouth fierce on his sends shivers through his groin, the way his pulse is thudding fast and hard close enough that Otabek’s sure to feel it.

“I know I said congratulations earlier, but let me,” Otabek said fifteen minutes ago, tugging Leo into his lap, “have this.”

Gold really does have its perks.

It’s a little weird, being the one led in this relationship. Leo’s been on plenty of dates, carried a few longer-term relationships, but nothing too fiercely committed. And though this isn’t casual, it’s still a work of bits and pieces, alternating late morning and early evening Skype chats, wrangling their way into the same training camps, scheduling flights together so they can spend a few extra days together round competitions—living on different continents does that to you. But it’s comfortable, and they’re both happy where they are right now. And on those rare, blissful occasions where they get to spend the night together, it’s always Otabek who takes charge.

Embarrassing as it is to admit, Leo’s never sat in anyone else’s lap to be kissed. His natural inclination has always been to pull his boyfriends or girlfriends or datemates close to him, to lavish them with affection first and make them feel loved. His instincts tell him that he’s the one that need to lead, that he’s the one that needs to watch and listen that little bit more. He’s a giver first and foremost, and that, he suspects, will never change.

But it feels so _special_ , being the one Otabek sets the pace for, and Leo can’t say he minds the change of scenery at all.

Otabek opens into the kiss, hotter, messier, and Leo lets himself be pulled in. He squeezes Otabek’s hand, broad and cool and smooth under his own warm, callused fingers. Otabek’s hand rubs firmer on his back, and eases his shirt up to wind onto his skin. As Otabek drags his fingers over Leo’s side and draws goosebumps, pleasure spikes through Leo’s gut.

But Lord, he’s _tired._ He shifts himself closer on Otabek’s lap, and breaks the kiss to nuzzle against Otabek’s jaw and lean into his chest. Otabek stops feeling him up and steadies him in place, and Leo can feel his smile curving against his neck.

“Leo?”

“‘M fine,” Leo murmurs, curling in closer. He may be a space heater in human form, but Otabek’s plenty warm, his skin firm and rough and dry under Leo’s cheek. This close, Leo’s imbibed with a faint blend of lavender soap, ginger shampoo, that carpet-sheets-hotel scent so familiar it feels almost like being home, and being cuddled up against him is the safest, most comfortable place Leo can think to be. “Gimme a minute.”

Otabek laughs low and husky against Leo’s neck and manoeuvres them so Leo’s half-leaning against the headboard too. Untwisting their fingers, Otabek reaches up with his free hand and loosens Leo’s ponytail, tugging out the elastic before combing out the braids which reach round to crown his head. His strokes are purposeful, concise, but never once does he pulls Leo’s hair or tug hard enough that it hurts.

“Nadine thinks you do my hair better than I do,” Leo mumbles into Otabek’s shoulder. He’s still light-headed from the alcohol, and the words just slip right out. But Otabek ought to know that Leo’s coach approves of him. Leo’s coach, and probably the whole world besides. Otabek’s fingers stroke through his hair again, slower, easing through the last twists and knots. He doesn’t respond, but that’s not a bad thing; just an Otabek thing, to let his actions speak first, while he takes the time to gather his thoughts.

“I’ve had practice,” Otabek says, low in the soft hum of the lamplight. A guitar strums a wistful melody from Leo’s phone, and on automatic, his brain picks up the pulses of the song and starts to fashion a dance between the copper-warm notes. It’s slow, maybe too slow, but it might work as a pair skate. “I like doing it, for what it’s worth.”

“Good,” Leo says. He lost Otabek’s train of speech somewhere after his choreography-brain turned on, but if Otabek’s happy about something, that’s all that matters. More than anything, Leo wants Otabek to be happy, in this whatever-it-is they are. His eyes flutter closed, and he forces them open—this is the last night they have together for a fortnight and the last thing he wants is to spend it _actually sleeping—_ but Otabek starts to stroke his hair and scalp again like he’s a cat, and Leo can’t resist the pull.

He’ll wake up to Otabek tomorrow morning, at least, and they may have a couple of hours to make up for lost time, if they’re lucky.

“I’m really glad,” Leo says a few minutes later, softly, half-asleep wound between Otabek’s heartbeat and the warm weight of his hands securing Leo close, “that we’re going to the final together.”

There’s a lot more about Otabek that makes him happy, things he’s grateful for, things he never really gets to say—but right now, this thing is the most important. Any time their competitions coincide is a blessing, but for this one, where it’s only the best of the best who can battle into one of those six coveted positions, Leo likes to think it says something about the both of them. It’s something they’ve both fought for and won in their own rights, and this year, they get to share it.

“You won’t get the gold so easily,” Otabek says, low and slow, like he’s about to fall asleep too—but pleased, for all that. “We’ve still got two weeks. I can make up 1.92 points.”

1.92 points. It seems like nothing, but it’s five inches higher on the podium, gleaming gold over subtle silver. When he competes against Otabek this early in the season, there’s always a fine margin between them. Leo wonders how it will turn out in the final, with just six of them under the pressure, and no boundaries and nothing to lose.

Their first big senior competition together—Skate America, 2015, the year after they both debuted in seniors—Leo won by just as slim a margin. 2.03 points, if he remembers correctly. In the end, looking back, it came down to Otabek flubbing two jumps in his free skate and Leo peaking early—but he knows they gave the audience a vivid dichotomy of style to remember. And really, they’re not so different, with their mutual determination to carve their own paths through this tightset world they’ve bound themselves to in heart and body and soul.

Where they verge is this: that Leo’s path is a dance to the music he loves with all the originality he can muster, growing and blooming and ever-changing, spinning and scything through his jumps as if to say _the best is yet to come, just let the music sweep over you and don’t you ever look away from me;_ while Otabek’s is a bold charge past every obstacle that’s stood in his way, climbing higher and harder and faster, with pride and relentless work at his back and glory bright before him. But theirs is an understanding that strength has a thousand different forms. Otabek sends Leo feedback on his jumps; Leo sends Otabek playlists fitting for a hero.

They compete as equals. Win or lose, they come back to one another, and build their strengths together. And always, always, Leo’s excited to see what Otabek’s going to show him next.

“Bring it, Beka,” Leo murmurs, smiling.

In the morning, the rest of the world will catch up to them. He’ll be fielding texts and snapchats and missed calls from both Phichit, excited to meet him in the final, and Guanghong, happy for him but cursing his own bad Skate Canada placing; and Otabek will have a raft of voicemails from Yuri Plisetsky, who booked a last-minute impulse flight to France to watch this event and will be outraged at Otabek disappearing from the banquet for something as trivial and _gross_ and _sappy_ as a _romantic getaway_. In the afternoon, Leo will be bound on a long, long flight to Colorado Springs via Reykjavik and Denver, while Otabek will still be in Paris til his flight to Almaty that evening. He can hardly tell how long they’ll have to themselves in Vancouver, much less in the months ahead. The uncertainty of what’s just around the corner should seem daunting.

But for now, lulled to sleep by his gently strumming music and the sonorous throb of Otabek’s heartbeat, curled with heavy limbs that have carried and showcased his greatest strengths and resting safe under Otabek’s strength in kind, Leo has this moment with this person he loves stretching into forever, and he wouldn’t change it for the world.


End file.
